Captivated by Darkness
by Lozidee
Summary: Alysa Varela is just a normal college student attending Gotham University. She was expecting to have another normal year, maybe throw in a few parties. However, when she finds herself to be the new obsession of the famous billionaire Bruce Wayne AKA the Bat vigilante, her second year of college won't be as ordinary as she originally thought. Takes place before events of BvS.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hello everyone! After recently watching Batman vs. Superman I felt inspired to write this and thought it would be interesting to have a fanfic with Bruce/OC since I haven't seen much in this category. Ben Affleck did an awesome job as Batman I think so I definitely wanted to write about him since in the movie they didn't really go into detail about Bruce's background as Batman too much. Anyways with further ado, here is the beginning chapter! Hope you guys like it and leave me some reviews of what you think of it so far! This story will begin a little bit before the events of the movie and will then go on from there.

 _Disclaimer: I do not own any of the DC characters, only mine._

 **Cast:**

Ben Affleck as Bruce

Cindy Kimberly as Alysa

* * *

Gotham City.

One of the oldest-established Eastern urban centers in the United States of America, now residing in infamy for its rampant per capita crime rate, florid urban legends, and brooding Gothic spires. This city was well known for its crime, everyone knew that. That's why everyone couldn't fathom why I wanted to come to this city for college.

It's been a year now since I had been attending Gotham University. Despite all the expectations everybody else and I had put on what my experience there would be like, it had been quite a peaceful year. Well, besides the few parties I was forced to go to by my roommates but that was normal college life.

I didn't care about the crime in Gotham City. Although the mysteries of the city drew me in a bit, all I wanted to do was pass University, get a degree, all while enjoying the views of the city without getting robbed or shot. If I never went out to the dangerous parts at night then I was completely fine. Besides, the last thing on my mind anymore were the dangers of the city.

I was going to be in SERIOUS trouble if I didn't get a passing grade in Journalism class.

I groaned and pulled my hair back behind my ear as I stared in horror at the C- grade right next to Journalism that flashed on my computer screen right before my emerald gaze. All my other grades were either B's or A's so that C- might as well been an F for all I was concerned.

It's not that I was a terrible journalist or writer, it's that the teacher in that class decided to be an ass and liked to give more vigorous homework and exams more than other classes. Before I signed up for the class, I figured I would pass it with flying colors. But obviously looking at my almost failing grade told me otherwise. The grade points I had were only inches away from a D. If I didn't do something to fix it soon, I might as well kiss my current high GPA goodbye.

"I'm so dead," I muttered, pressing my forehead against the screen with a small whimper.

"What's that, Aly?" One of my roommates, Emily questioned while examining and filing her nails down. Not like she was paying attention or anything. Her and our other roommate Sierra were too busy discussing about what they were going to wear for the next upcoming frat party rather than worrying about grades.

"I'm thinking to wear that blue dress I bought last week." Sierra sat against the wall on the bed while fiddling her thumbs across the screen of her cellphone to finish sending a text.

"Really? I was just going to wear jeans and a regular blouse. Is it going to be a formal party?" Emily asked.

"I have no idea."

"Well when is a frat party ever formal?"

I sighed and closed my laptop before shoving it inside my backpack, not paying attention to what the other girls were saying. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and slipped on my shoes, ready to head out for the dreaded journalism class.

"Alysa, why won't you go to the party with us?" Emily pouted. "You haven't went to one since the semester started."

"Sorry but I have a lot of homework to catch up on," I shrugged.

Sierra scoffed. "Yeah Emily, don't you know journalism class has been killing her? Poor thing. I'm so glad I'm not majoring in Communications."

I shot her a sideways glare. She was totally not helping at all. Sierra gave a small chuckle.

I merely let out a breathe of air I had been holding back. I really didn't want to go to class today. I furrowed my eyebrows, the expression on my face turning into a puppy-like pout almost.

"I'm going to cry."

The two other girls laughed in amusement at my comment.

"You'll do fine," Emily waved her hand.

Once we said our brief goodbyes, I left the dorm room and made my way to the classroom.

The school was fairly big, and the classroom was located on the other side of campus so I had a good walk to get there. I stepped outside after leaving the resident halls. Fortunately what I loved about Gotham was its weather, cool and gloomy. I didn't have to ever worry about the hot sun beaming down on me and causing me to sweat. When I had first moved in to the city one of my friends joked that I was going to lose my natural tan and become pale like the rest of the people living in Gotham. It was definitely a change from living on the west coast before where the sun was always out. That's where my mother and younger brother still lived. Of course, I still got to visit them on holidays so I wasn't completely deprived of the sun.

Once I got to the classroom inside of another building, I waited outside in the hall due to being a little bit early and another class was still in session. I pressed my shoulder against the brick wall and unlocked my phone screen to send a text to my friend that had that class with me. However as if on cue, my lovely homosexual male friend arrived to the hallway seconds later. I looked over and smiled as he bumped shoulders with me.

"There you are, I was just about to text you."

"You know how fashionably early I always am, Lyssa. Besides, I think I'm gonna scream if I have to spend another second in my dorm room." Dante rolled his eyes.

I stifled a laugh, remembering how my comical friend would always make sure to express his utmost dislike for his 'asshole roommate' as he often referred him to.

"What did he do this time?"

"Nothing. Literally nothing. He just sits on his side of the room playing video games all day or inviting his friends over to smoke pot. It's bad enough we have to share a restroom. Do you have any idea what I found all over the shower this morning? He left his disgusting sticky dick juice all over the wall without even cleaning up after himself." Dante grimaced.

I nearly choked with laughter, shaking my head in disbelief. "Okay, I don't need to hear more!" I exclaimed, just barely noticing that a few other people down the hall were already starting to give us sideways looks at their conversation.

"Anyways, that's how my day went. How was your day?" Dante clicked his tongue. "Better than mine I hope."

"And here I thought I was the only one having a bad day," I sighed. "I found out I'm close to failing this class.."

Dante scoffed. "Who isn't?"

I shot him a sideways look. "Seriously Dante, if I don't do something soon I'm going to fail Journalism. Journalism, are you kidding me?"

"Well if you need a study partner I can help you. Not that I'll be much help, I think." He chuckled.

I shrugged. "It's okay. Anyways, before I left the dorm I had to hear Emily and Sierra go on about that frat party they're going to tonight."

"Tyler's frat party?"

"Yeah."

"Well I'm not surprised. Your roommates are always chasing after dicks," Dante stated.

"Actually Tyler's kind of nice though."

"No, I mean literally they're always chasing after dicks."

"Oh," I comprehended, slightly chuckling under my breath when remembering the earlier comment from before. "Haha, dick juice."

Dante held onto my arm and snickered. The both of us held our tongues from laughing as the door opened letting out a bunch of students once the earlier class ended. We stepped inside the classroom and took our seats together as more students gathered inside the classroom to take any empty seats.

Once the professor began the lecture, the whole class remained silent and started pulling out their books and notebook to take notes.

"Reminder class, we have our second exam coming up next week and it will be based on chapters 5-10 in your textbooks," The professor drawled on, continuing with the lecture.

"Second exam? Are you serious, we barely had our first exam last week." Dante muttered.

I opened up my textbook to the chapters, which were at least about fifteen pages long. "I'm officially done," I groaned.

"That's college for you, sweetheart."

"Can I just drop out and become a stripper already?"

"No talking during lecture please," The professor reprimanded, averting his gaze straight at us to make sure we realized he was talking to us.

I nodded, looking back at my book once the professor went back to his lecturing. Dante and I quickly exchanged glances, snickering a bit before going back to taking notes.

As class went on, I could barely understand what the professor was saying anymore. I eventually gave up on taking notes and just tapped my pen against the desk in boredom, looking around at the rest of the class whose attention was also elsewhere. There were students either asleep or looking straight at the whiteboard with an open mouth, nearly drooling.

I had to stifle a laugh until the professor finally ended the lecture, indicating that the hour had passed.

"Okay that's all for today, enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all next week."

"Finally," Dante closed his books.

Students immediately packed their belongings and practically sprinted out of the classroom. As all of them began pouring out of the class, Dante and I made our way towards the entrance of the classroom to leave as well. Before exiting I stopped to look back at the professor who had walked back over to his desk to collect his belongings to head home for the day. If I wanted any chance of extra credit, this was the chance to ask.

"You go on without me, I'll catch up with you later. I want to talk to the teacher for a second," I glanced back at Dante.

"Okay, see ya later Lyssa." He left the classroom.

As everyone left and I was the only remaining student in the classroom, I went over to the professor who currently still had his attention on putting all of his things away in his bag. I briefly noticed he had shoved some newspaper articles about the crime going on in Gotham, one of the titles read 'Bat strikes again', however before I could even read what it was about the professor zipped up his bag.

"Um, professor Roland?" I inquired.

He lifted up his glasses over the bridge of his nose and looked over to stare at me. "Oh miss Varela, can I help you with something?"

Professor Roland had always been a bit of an odd one from the teachers at the University. That might've been because of so many years living in Gotham, or it might simply just be his personality who knows. His greased dark hair was slicked back in a manner that always seemed like he was sweaty all he time. He did always seem to be nervous or unusually paranoid about everything, which made most of the students think he was taking drugs or something. Other than that, he was also quite thin and tall like a willowy tree. It wouldn't surprise me if he was taking something, but what struck out most about him for me was his odd sense of clothing. Not that I minded, but it was somewhat comical to see a college professor dressed in khakis with differently colored socks.

I found myself getting distracted by his multicolored socks that I almost forgot about our conversation. I took a deep breath and averted my gaze back up to his.

"I looked at my grade for his class and noticed I was close to failing."

"Ah, yes. Well don't be too discouraged, it's still early in the semester. Just make sure to do better on your tests." He slung his bag over his shoulder, making a move to leave.

"Well I was hoping you could give me some extra credit?" I bit my lip, hoping he would say yes.

The professor furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, making me a bit disheartened that his answer would be no.

 _'Please say yes.'_ I mentally begged.

"I don't think I can do that miss Varela, it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the class if I only gave you that extra credit assignment."

"Well the rest of the class isn't asking, I am." I pressed, hoping I didn't sound too harsh.

He hummed a bit in thought, as if considering what I prompted. He clasped his hands together and tapped one finger against the other. "Fine, I will give you an extra credit assignment. Mind you, if you complete it then I will give you an A for the entire semester."

My eyes immediately shot up in excitement. It took me several seconds to figure out if I heard right. An A for the whole semester!? I was beyond elated.

"Really!? Thank you so much! What is it? I'll do anything."

"This assignment won't be easy. Even the most skilled of journalists can't do it," The professor gave me a stern stare.

"What is it?" I blinked, feeling a bit more uneasy about the assignment now.

"I want you to get a picture of the Batman."

There was an abrupt deafening silence in the room as I stared at the professor. Okay, now I was actually sure I might have heard him wrong.

"You want me to what..?" I asked, incredulous.

The Batman remained the greatest mystery of Gotham for years. The masked vigilante that brought criminals to justice in a not so nice way. In fact, I had been hearing rumors that he has been getting more violent throughout the years for some reason. He was the shadow of the city. The dark knight. Getting up close enough to him would certainly be very dangerous, let alone taking a picture. Even if someone did manage it, he disappears within the blink of an eye. That's why hardly nobody was able to get a good picture of the Bat.

"I know what I'm asking of you is a lot and quite possibly dangerous.-"

"I'll do it." I blurted out without second thought.

"Are you sure?" Professor Roland raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting to hear that response.

I crossed my arms in frustration, feeling slightly upset that he would actually think I would say no when I was the one who asked for the extra credit in the first place. "Yes, I really need that A."

"Very well miss Varela," He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. "If you can get me that photo by the end of the semester I will pass you no matter what."

"Thank you, professor." I dipped my head in gratitude and turned back to exit the classroom. Once I stepped out into the hallway I started making my way back to the dorms, only stopping while I was halfway there in realization of what I had done.

I had just agreed to get a picture of the Batman.

Well, at least now I figured my sophomore year was going to be anything but boring.

* * *

The luxury of Friday finally came as soon as I was done with my classes. As I expected my roommates weren't in the room when I got back either, which probably indicated that they had either already left for the frat party or went to another friends' dorm to get ready there. Since it was only six which was much too early for a party to start, I had guessed they were off getting ready somewhere else. Now I was able to relax by myself in the silence of my dorm room for a while until my roommates arrived back drunk out of their minds at 3 in the morning. Hopefully they would decide to sleepover at a friends because it wasn't like I enjoyed being woken up at an early hour to the sound of obnoxious laughter and vomiting.

Especially since I had gone through that myself once or two times last year, and let me tell you it wasn't fun. That's why I preferred to avoid too many parties. I never considered myself the party girl type.

I sat on my bed and pulled open my laptop to finish up some online work I had due for the weekend. After a few minutes of finishing short online quizzes for the classes, my phone buzzed on the blanket beside me. I reached over for my phone to check my messages.

Dante:

 **I'm coming over.**

I mouthed a silent 'what?' as soon as I heard knocking at the front door. I got up from my bed to open the door for Dante as I assumed that was who was knocking right now. He wasted no time in barging inside like usual as soon as I opened the door.

"What are you doing tonight?" He quickly asked.

I closed the door back shut and shrugged. "Um, nothing I think."

"Okay, you're doing something now. Do you have any nice dresses to wear? Like really formal dresses?" He dropped his bag on my bed and pulled out a suit to lay it out. I just stared at his nice suit, wondering what the occasion could possibly be for.

"Um, I'll have to check."

He made his way to my closet to rummage through my clothes to see if I had anything formal. Of course he wasn't going to find anything formal in there, but I quickly remembered I had bought one dress from last year because it was beautiful but I could never wear it because it was too formal for simple parties.

I reached up and pulled it from high above the closet to lay it on the bed. Since it was still in a white bag I had to zip it open to reveal a long gold sequin dress. Dante stopped to admire it for a second with his mouth slightly agape.

"See, it's way too formal." I held in a laugh.

"No, it's perfect!" Dante clasped his hands together. "Your wearing it, hands down."

"What? No," I scoffed, "Where are we going that's so formal? Are we having tea with the Queen or something?"

Dante pointed a finger at me. I was expecting him to laugh or come up with another joke with mine like he usually did but instead his expression remained completely serious, which was definitely foreign to see with him. "No, but close." He advised.

"We're going to the Wayne Enterprises penthouse party."

I stared at him for a few moments, obviously thinking I might be hard of hearing today because everyone have been saying the craziest things.

"You're joking, right?" I poked his shoulder, expecting him to break and laugh any second now but his face wasn't cracking an inch.

"No, I'm serious Lyssa." Dante sighed to check his phone for the time. "I totally forgot about this party, and if I want any chance of working there I need to make a good expression. One of the co-workers invited me and the other interns. They said we could bring a 'date' if we wanted and I need my best friend there." He pleaded.

Of course. Dante only just started interning at Wayne Enterprises a week ago. He had been so overjoyed when he got accepted a position as an intern there. After so much hard training and meeting important people who could give him a better chance, it finally pulled off. It had always been his dream to work there and now this was his first step toward his goal. A lot of people would kill for a position there. Wayne Enterprises was basically a Wall Street company owned by the famous billionaire Bruce Wayne.

I sighed at him and smiled. "How could I say no, Tay-tay?"

He returned the smile after I called him by my affectionate nickname. "I knew you wouldn't let me down, my Brazilian queen." He teased, fanning himself for a dramatic effect. I gave out a laugh at his comment, amused that he would call me his Brazilian something since I had told him about my ethnicity.

"Isn't that party like for older rich people though?" I mused. "They aren't going to kick us out because we're broke college kids right?"

"No, you get a free pass this time since I'm an intern and I'm pretty sure there was another intern that goes here too. Besides, nobody's gonna think your a college student when your wearing that, honey." Dante gave me a smirk, nodding over to the beautiful gold sequin dress that was sitting on my bed. I was now thankful that I decided to buy that dress when it was on sale because otherwise it could've cost a lot more.

As Dante started getting ready, I suddenly found myself catching a lump in my throat as I stared at my dress.

 _Wait, I'm actually going to a Wayne Enterprises party._

The famous playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne would quite possibly be there. I could get a picture of him and send it to my Mom because god knows how long he's been one of her celebrity crushes.

As I pulled my dress up off the bed, I soon decided that this day couldn't get anymore crazier.

But I was definitely even more glad that I had decided not to go to that lame frat party.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you for the reviews! Here's the next chapter, tell me what you guys think ~

* * *

As we pulled in front of one of the several Wayne Enterprises buildings in Gotham that held the penthouse, I stared in silent awe at the front scenery. With what it lacked during the day time it surely made up for how it looked during the night. The building lit up like a Christmas tree with all the bright lights, mirroring the rest of the impressive city lights around the area.

After Dante and I said our goodbyes to our Uber driver - a means of transportation we thought was best since it was more affordable than a taxi driver but still left me feeling out of place beside all of these fancy limos and luxury cars around the parking space, we stepped out of the car and headed towards the entrance.

The cool breeze of the city hitting my skin caused me to cross my arms and I found myself wishing I had brought a jacket with me. The small sprinkles from the large water fountain in the front weren't helping much either. However I was too busy admiring the scenery still.

"You want my jacket?"

Once I heard someone speak beside me, I turned to come face with a man in a tux equally as nice as Dante's. He looked to be around possibly our age.

He nervously lifted up his glasses and stood there rather awkwardly when his offer was met with silence.

"Oh, it's fine-" I immediately responded, but Dante interjected with a "hey!"

"Paul, nice to see you here. I didn't know how many of the other interns were gonna come," Dante shook hands with him and put a hand on my shoulder. "Lyssa this is Paul, he's one of the other interns with me. He goes to Gotham University too, he's senior there. Paul this is Alysa." He introduced us.

"Hi," I smiled and reached out to shake his hand, figuring this was the other student intern besides Dante he was talking about earlier. He returned the smile and nervously brushed his hair back for a second before noticing my hand out. His hand immediately shot down and met mine with a firm grip.

"N-Nice to meet you, Alysa." He stammered.

I kept a friendly grin and briefly pushed my elbow back against Dante's chest when I heard him stifle an amused laugh under his breath. He gave out a cough and rubbed his hands together to try and keep warm from the cold. "Well shall we head on in then? I'm kind of freezing my ass here."

"Yeah, let's get inside." Paul nodded in agreement.

"No, really? I just thought we'd stand here and talk for the rest of the night. It's pretty nice out," I sarcastically mused.

Dante put an arm around me and squeezed himself against me while we walked inside the building. "Okay, miss cheeky." He teased, to which I responded with a light laugh.

The front entrance of the building as we walked inside was impressive as well, surrounded by white walls and pearl tile floors. Some of the invited guests of the party already started to swarm in, either taking the elevator up to the penthouse or waiting for others to arrive and snapping pictures. I was already starting to feel a little intimated by the wealthy guests. Most of them were clearly sophisticated aristocrats or entrepreneurs that had probably already had lifelong experiences with parties such as these.

Once we took the elevator up to the penthouse, there were already possibly hundreds of people inside enjoying cocktails or champagne laughing and conversing with one another. The echoing of the room allowed me to hear even the faintest of clinging of glass or ladies walking with their high heels across the room.

The penthouse itself was absolutely gorgeous - diamond chandeliers sitting high up on the ceiling from the center of the room with glass walls all around that provided a breathtaking view of the city at all sides. As I marveled over the sight, I couldn't help but feeling an overwhelming sense of being out of place next to all of these other rich guests that clearly weren't as fazed by all the extravagant scenery as I was, seeing as they've probably already were used to extravagant things.

"This place is so cool," Dante equally marveled over the sight, earning a nod of agreement from Paul. Another man in a tux which I assumed who worked here for the party approached us with a tray full of glasses of drinks once he saw more guests arriving inside.

"Champagne?" He offered.

We all proceeded to grab a glass from the tray and give him our thanks. He dipped his head and went back to stand and wait for more guests to offer drinks to.

"So they don't even have to ID us?" I asked, amused.

Dante chuckled. "No, because it's a party. They're gonna assume everyone here is over 21 anyways." He explained.

I replied with an intrigued 'oh'. My lips twitched into a small smile as I took a sip of the champagne.

"I wonder if the other interns are here..." Paul turned his head and gazed around the room to try and find sight of them. Dante peered across the room and raised his glass to point towards the direction of the small group of interns once he spotted them. "Hey, there they are."

As they started to make their way towards them I casually snaked my arm around Dante's to not be left behind. Once the other group spotted us I was briefly introduced to the other interns before they all began to chat amongst each other. I assumed they all had already became friends since they were all interns together. I began to feel slightly awkward standing beside Dante as they talked about their experiences of their internships, a conversation I obviously couldn't be part of.

"Hey, does anyone have the time?" Dante asked at one point in the conversation.

I reached inside of my wristlet for my phone and turned on the screen. "It's 9:30." I responded.

"Is Bruce Wayne here yet?" One of the interns wondered, leaning his head over to peer around the room.

Paul shook his head. "Probably not, I heard he always arrives late to parties anyways. Something like that is pretty normal for a playboy billionaire."

"God, I hope we at least get to meet him. That man is freakin hot." Dante sighed.

Another one of the interns shook his head. "I doubt it, he might make a speech or something and then leave. I heard from another employee that he never stays too long for parties like this, even if he's the one throwing them."

"Probably leaves to go to another party." Paul chuckled.

After the topic of Bruce Wayne died down the group moved onto another topic of work and continued with their conversation. I sighed and took another sip of my champagne, just barely realizing it was almost to the bottom. I started to have a feeling that I had to pee so I lightly tapped Dante on the shoulder.

"I'm gonna go to the restroom okay?"

He nodded with a smile. "Okay."

I turned and left the group in search of the restrooms which I would hope wouldn't be too hard to find.

* * *

Within minutes later, a crowd of excited yelps and cheer could be heard down below. Many of the guests moved toward the glass to get a better look at the flashing lights of the cameras from a particular small luxury car rolling up beside the curb entrance in front of the building.

"What's going on?" Paul wondered. The other interns rushed toward the glass windows with the other guests to see what was going on. Dante stepped in beside them to get a closer look as well.

"Bruce is here." One of the interns gave an excited gasp.

Dante pulled out his phone and held it against the glass. "Hell yes, this is definitely going on Snapchat," He squealed with excitement. "Damn it, Lyssa's missing out on all the fun."

* * *

Bruce stepped out of the car, ignoring the usual camera flashes that came whenever he arrived to a party. He gave out an annoyed sigh as he put on a forced smile to hide his normally serious and tired facade. He was getting too old to play the eccentric playboy every time he had to show himself to the public, but Alfred had insisted him to at least attend his penthouse party to continue making a good impression for the company.

After stepping out of the car and onto the sidewalk he allowed the two models that were accompanying him to wrap their arms around his so he had them on both sides. As the camera continued to flash, he offered the crowd of guests waiting outside a brief raise of the hand along with a smile. They walked on into the building and up the elevator to the penthouse. Once the elevator doors opened, he was met with the friendly faces of his guests raising their glasses in greeting.

"Apologies for the usual tardiness, I want to thank the rest of you for actually arriving on time to my lovely penthouse. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna help myself to a glass of champagne before we all run out."

The crowd broke into a brief row of chuckles. The models unattached themselves from his arms to go chat with other company and he allowed his hands to linger on their waists for a moment as he brushed past them to get to the drinks.

"Here you are, sir."

Bruce turned and took the glass of champagne from the tray before offering a raise of his glass. "Alfred," He greeted.

"You're late again Master Bruce."

The billionaire quickly finished his glass of champagne and set aside the empty glass back on the tray.

"At least I came."

Alfred sighed and muttered a witty remark under his breath no doubt, something that hasn't been foreign for him these past years. Ignoring his inaudible remark, Bruce stepped away to engage himself in idle conversation with a few of the guests around the penthouse. As he played decent host to at least some of his guests, he found himself wandering back to find another drink. Excessive drinking had almost became a habit to him anywhere now.

Spotting another tray full of drinks sitting against the wall near the entrance to the restrooms, he pulled the wine bottle open with a cork twister and poured himself a glass of Chardonnay. As he lifted the glass to take a sip he stared ahead for a brief moment, catching sight of a few older aristocratic men standing around some poor young woman it seemed. The men were very clearly trying to flirt with her but based on her body expressions from what he could see at his angle they weren't succeeding too well.

He took another sip of his wine contemplating whether or not he should go save her from the vultures, but then he got a closer look at her face. He brought his glass back down, too interested in examining the young woman's features to continue on drinking.

She was gorgeous.

Her skin tight gold sequin dress just beautifully accentuated her hourglass figure even more as he found himself shamelessly staring at her curves. He had to forcefully pull his gaze away to stare at her face now - which was possibly the main thing that attracted him to her in the first place. She had a glowing olive skin tone and a dark violet lipstick on that nearly looked black. Her eyes were either brown or green, he couldn't quite tell from the lighting. She had ebony black hair pressed neatly into a side bun.

He couldn't help himself but thinking she reminded him of Talia al Ghul in a way since they both had those same exotic features. They were both beautiful nonetheless as he kept staring at this young woman who resembled his former lover, he found himself wondering this girl possibly could be prettier than Talia. Grant it this girl was much younger too; at Talia's prime they could have equally matched with beauty.

He shook his head and took another drink to distract himself from his absent minded thoughts of his ex.

Beautiful exotic brunettes were going to be the death of him someday.

* * *

I stood awkwardly at the entrance of the restrooms with several other of the older male guests who had stopped me in my tracks after I had exited the bathroom and started to make my way back into the foyer. A few of them looked to be between 40-50 or 60 years old, grant it that were the ages of most of the men in here. I tried to ignore their sleazy comments and boasts about how rich they were. Instead I was silently praying in my head for Dante to come and look for me, which I knew wasn't likely to happen since he was to preoccupied with the other interns all the way across the room.

"You know I own a yacht in Greece, maybe I could take you there sometime, baby." One of the men flashed me a lustful grin.

I found myself internally wanting to vomit at his offer, however instead I tried to force the most realistic smile I could muster. "No thanks, I should be getting back to my friend now. He's probably wondering where I am," I sarcastically muttered, trying my best not to roll my eyes as I took another sip of my drink.

I decided I was going to kill Dante later.

"Aw, come on don't leave us. We were having such a good chat," The men frowned.

"You heard the young lady, she wants to get back to her friend."

We all turned our heads toward the new voice, and I found myself staring at another older man possibly around his late 30s to early 40s. As soon as I was about to play in my head the dread of another wealthy bachelor coming into the conversation, the feeling began to die away once I continued to stare at the man's handsome features. His hair was dark with slight grey flecks and his face was very neatly clean shaven besides a slight five o'clock shadow that still remained. My gaze slowly averted to his nicely toned arms which were bulky with muscle, as well as the rest of his body. Just by staring at him I knew this man definitely worked out.

The man offered us a friendly smile, and I soon decided I didn't mind his company too much.

"It's best to leave her alone, I'm sure your wives would understand."

I suddenly caught sight of the visible wedding rings on each of their fingers that the man seemed to have noticed way before I did. I felt even more disgusted by them now, be that as it may I still found myself smiling at his sarcasm and trying to hold in a laugh from escaping my lips.

The men begrudgingly dipped their heads in respect, the grimaces on their faces clearly expressing utter annoyance. One by one they casually drifted away back into the crowd of guests without saying another word.

"Sorry about that, my guests tend to get a little too excited about beautiful things sometimes." The man now turned to face me, exchanging his hand out with a small smile. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

I fluttered my eyelashes, my chest hitching from an unusual tightness caught in my throat. I was too distracted by his sweet words to even get confused by the fact that he had called the guests 'his'.

"Alysa," I replied, slowly shaking his hand.

"Alysa.." He repeated to test the sound on his lips. "Forgive my manners. I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Bruce Wayne."

I nearly choked on my champagne glass after I stupidly decided to take another sip.

"What?"

He gave out an amused chuckle under his breath at my response. "I thought you knew that already," He admitted, his voice laced with slight surprise. "You're attending my party after all."

I suddenly felt myself feeling like an idiot for not knowing he was Bruce Wayne, but it wasn't like I actually expected for the celebrity billionaire to actually be talking to me. Besides I wasn't completely familiar with Gotham's popularity, I had only saw Bruce on the news a couple of times and must have forgotten what he looked like by now. It wasn't like he made too many public appearances either.

 _'Why are you taking to me?'_ The words nearly escaped from my throat, but instead I just merely stared at him and stammered.

"Um..."

He was about to say something else, however once his butler came on over and whispered something in his ear I sighed in relief as I was momentarily saved from looking like a clueless fool. I watched as his expression grew serious after whatever the butler had whispered. He nodded and raised his head to meet my gaze again.

"I'm sorry, I have to leave to get to a business meeting. It was nice meeting you, Alysa." He gave a rushed apology, his eyes lingering on mine for a moment before leaving me there to make his way out of the penthouse.

"Okay, bye.." I trailed off but he had already left. I felt it to be a little odd that he had to leave so rushed but I figured he had just forgotten about the meeting he had to attend or something. It wasn't like I knew about what went on inside billionaire's heads.

The butler remained standing where I was, kindly offering me another glass of champagne on the silver plate when he noticed my empty glass.

"More champagne, miss?"

I politely shook my head no.

"No thanks, I think I've had enough champagne for one day."

 _The understatement of the year._


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Another chapter, hope you guys like it! Sorry I kinda took a while to update. ~

* * *

I took another sip of my mango smoothie I had bought from Smoothie King as I sat and listened to Emily and Sierra talk about how drunk they got at the frat party last Friday and how cute the boys they made out with were for what seemed to be the third time today. Before my shift at work started Emily, Sierra, and Dante decided to tag along with me and hang out at the mall for a while. The Gotham City mall was one of the few places that remained less dangerous than the rest of the city because it resided in the somewhat wealthier part of Gotham. It wasn't exactly the safest place in the world but then again nowhere in this city was. The mall at least remained intact and nice, unlike some areas in Gotham that's had become rundown or littered with graffiti.

So here we were at the food court having smoothies at one of the tables.

"Anyways, Ben was so hot." Emily sighed, gushing over the guy she had made out with from the party.

"I thought you said his name was Blake." Dante scoffed while chewing on his straw. I exchanged glances with him as I stifled a laugh.

"Oh yeah, Blake." Emily waved a hand, but then realization dawned upon her face expression. "Oh my god, now I can't remember if I had been calling him Ben the entire night. Do I even have saved in my contacts under the right name?" She picked up her phone and scrolled along her contacts before slapping a hand against her forehead. "Yep. I have him as Ben. How embarrassing." She whined.

"It wouldn't be the only time you called a guy by a different name." Dante shook his head and smirked, earning a defensive yet amused glare from Emily.

"Hey!"

"Alysa, you should've came with us! Then maybe you would've gotten a guy too." Sierra interjected with a wink.

I scrunched up my nose as I took another quick sip from my smoothie. "Thank you so much for your concern, but I was completely fine not going." I pressed my finger against the top of the straw to suck some of the juice out from the end as I usually did. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Emily roll her eyes at me.

"As if Alysa needs help in getting guys. I mean look at her, she probably has a bunch of guys texting her all the time."

"Oh yeah, true." Sierra scoffed and smacked me across the arm, pretending to be annoyed.

I stared at them in disbelief and pulled my mouth away from my straw to show them my phone screen which revealed a very empty notifications inbox. "What are you talking about? I literally barely ever get any texts the whole day."

"Lies." They all playfully said in unison.

"I'm serious, the only 'guy' I get look forward to getting a text from is Dante when he says he wants to go get food." I admitted, which earned an amused laugh from the group. The said lovely boy held a hand over his heart and faked a sniffle. "Aw babe, that's so touching."

"You know it's true, too." I rolled my eyes, nudging my shoulder against his.

"Don't worry, Alysa. We'll all get boyfriends by the end of the year." Sierra assured with a giggle.

Dante nudged his shoulder back against mine. "Oh but she already has a billionaire boyfriend, don't you Alysa?"

I stared at him in confusion and slight uneasiness as he wiggled his eyebrows and gave me one of his infamous seductive smirks. "What are you talking about?" I reached forward for the straw of the smoothie, unsure if I wanted to even know what he was suggesting.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your new boyfriend Bruce Wayne, of course." He chuckled and continued to nudge at my shoulder. I nearly choked on the smoothie.

 _Oh god, not this again._

"Oh my god yes, I can't believe you actually talked to him!" Emily squealed with excitement and Sierra edged closer to the table in interest to hear more once again. I almost strangled Dante for telling them the first time, the three of them wouldn't shut up about it for the entire day. Then again, Dante couldn't stop talking about it ever since we had left the penthouse party Friday night.

"Like, you actually talked to Bruce Wayne. Bruce. Wayne. What the actual fuck. He's basically a celebrity."

"He IS a celebrity!" Sierra scoffed.

Dante nodded in agreement as he began to speak on yet again with his story. "Can you imagine what I thought? There I was, feeling so bad that I had completely forgotten about Alysa-"

"You did forget about me." I interrupted, giving him an accusing stare. He brushed aside my comment to continue. "Anyways, so there I was feeling bad. I started looking around the room to look for her and there I saw her talking to Bruce fucking Wayne. I shit you not I had to take at least three double takes to make sure it was actually you. I couldn't believe it. My little Alysa was talking to the famous Prince of Gotham." Dante shook his head in disbelief.

Once Emily and Sierra broke into another fit of squeals, I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes.

"It's not that big a deal, he probably talks to every girl at his parties."

"But he actually had a conversation with you!" Emily swooned.

"Yeah, for like a minute. But then he had to leave. That's probably the last time I'll ever see him," I shrugged. As I absentmindedly blended the straw from my drink, a slight feeling of disappointment couldn't help but brushing my thoughts.

 _Wait, why was I even disappointed..?_

I quickly brushed the thought from my head and gave out a scoff. "He's like 40 anyways," I mentioned out loud.

Emily snorted. "He's still hot, not to mention rich. I would totally bang."

We all chuckled. I shook my head and slung my bag over my shoulder, finishing the last of my mango smoothie before tossing it towards the nearest trash can. "Okay," I drawled. "Well, I need to get to work or I'm gonna be late again. See you later guys."

"Okay bye, Aly." Sierra grinned.

"I'll text you later, babe." Dante gave me a thumbs up.

"Try not to run into anymore billionaires." Emily winked.

I stepped away from the table pulled my hair behind my ear, glancing sideways to see if anyone noticed that these people were actually my friends. "You guys are crazy," I said in a sing song voice, trying to hold back a laugh.

"That's why you love us," Dante blew me a kiss.

I waved a final goodbye and made my way out of the food court to get to the Forever 21 store where I worked at. It was a good job with decent pay that a broke college student like me so desperately needed. Since I only worked part-time there, it fit right in between my school schedule.

As I walked inside the store, several of my co-workers who had noticed me arrive briefly waved in greeting and went back to folding clothes and organizing racks. After I dropped my belonging off at the employee lockers, I walked over to the cashier station to claim my shift. One of my co-workers working the previous shift smiled when she saw me, glad that she was allowed to leave now. Once she left I sighed and began ringing up the remaining customers in line.

* * *

A few hours passed and I was grateful that there was only an hour left until closing time. Thankfully, my shift today ended earlier than usual since the mall hours began closing at a much more earlier time than it used to due to some suspicious activities going on lately that I didn't know much about, only by hearing rumors around the store.

The customer line was growing smaller by the later hour, probably because people avoided being out at night too long. I definitely couldn't blame them.

A pretty blonde woman came last in line, setting down a blue blouse on the counter with a receipt. As I looked at her face I couldn't help but wondering where I saw her face before. She definitely looked oddly familiar, like I had saw her on television before.

"I'd like to return this, please." She spoke.

"Yeah, sure." I took a look at the receipt while folding the blouse. "I just need to see your credit card that you bought this with."

She handed me her credit card and I swiped it along the cash register.

"With the kind of job I have, I barely have any time for shopping. I just see what I want, buy it, and go. Too bad I accidentally got the wrong size," She sighed with a smile.

"I get you," I chuckled in agreement before handing her back her card. "Your all set to go."

She smiled back at me and took the card back, murmuring a quick 'thank you'. As she fumbled with her wallet to stick her card back inside, I finally couldn't help myself from asking.

"You know, you look familiar."

She gave a small laugh at my comment and slipped her purse over her shoulder. "You have no idea how many times a day I get that from people, honey. I'm a news reporter, that's why."

Once she caught my face expression still trying to make out with who she was, she mimicked the very recognizable news reporter voice, "This is Vicki Vale reporting live from Gotham City.

She laughed again when my face finally hit recognition.

"Ohhh! You're Vicki Vale! Duh, of course." I rolled my eyes at my brief stupidity. "Of course I know you now, you're so cool. If I ever watch the news, it's on your channel." I winked and clicked my tongue at her.

That is, if I ever actually watched the news on TV. Now a days I only got the news from social media or word of mouth. But like I was going to say that when Vicki Vale herself was standing right in front of me.

"Well thank you, honey." She returned the wink. "Good choice. By the way, do you by any chance go to Gotham University? I'm just wondering since this seems to be a popular spot for college kids to work at."

"I do, why do you ask?" I wondered.

"I've been wanting to do a report on Gotham University for a while and I think it would be even better if I got the opinion of a student on how it's like attending University in one of the most crime filled cities. I want to know if they have different lives than any other normal college student."

I shrugged. "Eh, I would say our lives are still pretty normal for college students."

"Well, that's exactly what I want to know. I've also been in contact with one of the Universities journalism professors. I want to make a program where I can take a few students that want to pursue journalism as a career to get a hands on experience on the kind of work I do for a day," She explained.

"Really? That would be so cool!" I inquired. My mind slightly wondered if Professor Roland was the journalism professor she got in touch with. "I'm actually taking a journalism class this semester."

She smiled. "That's perfect. Then you can check out that program when it comes out."

I nodded. "I will, definitely."

"Anyways, I've got to run. It was nice meeting you, honey. What's your name?" She reached out her hand towards mine.

"It's Alysa," I smiled and politely shook her hand.

"I'll be seeing you later then maybe, Alysa." She winked and returned the smile before walking out of the store.

Since it started getting closer to closing time the rest of the employees remaining in the store started closing up. One of the co-workers that I got along with the most started organizing the racks that were out of place at the last minute as she was passing by the cash register.

"Dina, I can't believe you missed her." I peered over at the entrance of the store to see if I could still catch sight of Vicki somewhere.

"Missed who?"

"Vicki Vale was here," I stepped away from the cash register once I had closed it down as well, starting to make my way back over to the lockers.

She gaped at me while proceeding to fold a pair of shorts that had been thrown onto one of the table displays. "No way, really?"

"I'm serious, she just left like a second ago."

Another one of our co-workers Julie peeked around from behind a rack she was organizing. I was surprised she even peeked interest at our conversation since she usually kept to herself most of the time. "Really? She's one of my favorite reporters."

"Yeah, she was telling me she might do this journalism program thing for Gotham University. It sounded pretty cool."

"Lucky," Dina pouted, expressing her annoyance since she attended college at a different school which was a small private liberal college nearby.

After we gathered our belongings from the lockers and closed up the store to leave, Dina and I started to make our way out of the mall and back downstairs to the parking lot. Julie even tagged along this time. I've always tried to make it a habit to leave with one of my co-workers, since Dina and I didn't particularly want to wander around the usually vacant parking lot at night. Even the mall was kind of creepy at closing time since most of the shops were closed and barely any people were left. The lights remained dimly lit since all the closed stores were dark inside. We headed towards the elevator and pressed the button that went down to the parking lot.

As the elevator doors closed and we waited to arrive at our destination, we continued to idly converse amongst each other and talk about little things like work usually.

"Do you guys work tomorrow?" I asked.

Julie shook her head and Dina groaned. "Yes, unfortunately."

The elevator suddenly made a low creaking sound like the rubbing against metal. I felt myself instantly get a little tense but I decided to brush it off as nothing. The elevator was a little old, after all.

 _Actually, that should probably make me worry._

"That sucks," I continued on with the conversation to try and ease my thoughts, but then my worse thoughts were confirmed once the elevator came to an abrupt jarring stop that made us momentarily lose our footing.

I immediately grabbed onto the railing behind us to catch myself from falling. The other girls fell backwards against the side of the elevator with surprised yelps, clutching onto the railing as well.

"Okay, what the fuck is happening right now." Dina breathed, mimicking my exact thoughts at this moment.

"It's probably just a mechanical problem," Julie glanced over at the elevator door which was currently still shut.

 _That really wasn't a good sign._

I stared up at the ceiling and saw some of the lights begin to rattle.

 _Something was definitely wrong._

"Oh my god, what if we get stuck here the whole night?" Dina worriedly exchanged glances with me, her facial expression starting to turn to panic.

I furrowed my eyebrows with worry. "Don't say that, I really have to pee." I helplessly whined.

"Oh, thats what you're worried about!?" She gave me an incredulous look, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh. Maybe I could help ease the tension by at least trying to be funny. But I actually really did have to pee.

When the elevator doors suddenly opened each of us let out a relieved breath of air. However when I saw the unusually dark eeriness of the empty parking lot, I felt my skin start to crawl with even more uneasiness than before. As soon as we heard the loud motor of what seemed to be a motorcycle upstairs; along with screams and gunfire, we immediately backed up against the wall of the elevator and screamed in terror.

"Oh my god, what do we do!?" Dina's voice cried out in a terrified hitch, nearly on the brink of tears.

As soon as the roaring motor of the motorcycle grew closer heading in this direction, my gaze shot open at the clearly visible fact that the elevator doors were still completely ajar. "Are you fucking se-" I cut my sentence off short in disbelief over how stupid we were standing there as I threw myself over to the button panels to furiously press at the button to close the doors.

I felt myself feel a bit more safer once the elevator beeped and the doors shut close, but then we heard a sudden loud thud of someone being thrown against the elevator right as the doors stopped moving. Dina and Julie screamed again as we pressed ourselves back against the railing, terrified that whatever had fallen against the doors were trying to break it open.

We quickly huddled together for safety and remained under a deafening silence as listened to the faint painful grunts and punches being thrown from the other side of the door.

"Is this some kind of a gang fight?" Julie murmured, her voice so quiet I could barely hear.

Dina quickly shushed us from speaking and I briefly shook my head. "I don't...know-"

Some kind of odd looking knife shooting right through the metal of the elevator door was enough to shut me up and send a scream escaping from my throat. Julie was probably too frightened to scream at this point, but Dina was on the verge of crying right about now. We trembled against each other and stared at the knife that had been thrown through the metal. No, it wasn't an ordinary knife, obviously. It wasn't even a knife. It was obviously made of steel like a bullet, but the insignia of it was shaped like a...

 _Bat's._

I felt my jaw slightly drop as I continued to stare at it. A small red light flashed from underneath the bottom of the insignia, and I was almost nervous that it was going to blow up on us.

"Is that..?" Dina nervously inquired.

The noise outside soon fell into an ominous yet calming silence. The only thing we could hear was the beeping of the elevator, indicating the doors were about to open. I felt my stomach start to turn and the only thing I could hear besides the deafening silence was my heart beating like a jackhammer. Once the doors opened, we were met face to face with none other than...

 _Him._

I could only imagine how ridiculous we looked just staring agape against the back of the elevator wall.

The normally dimly lit parking lot was covered in darkness, so he easily remained encased in the shadows but we could see still his abnormal gleaming eyes from inside his cowl, remaining emotionless, cold.

The few partial pictures I saw of the Batman in the news was nothing in comparison to how frightening he looked in person.

I was too scared at that point to even notice his glaring eyes looking straight at mine. I couldn't make out his facial expression, that is if he even had any, but from this angle I could see his eyes narrowing in that of almost interest.

"Leave. Now." His distorted deep voice suddenly rang out from the shadows, making the other two girls and I jump and snap out of our terrified trance.

We hesitated for a second longer before stepping out of the elevator, but we decided to not waste anymore time so we each scurried out of the elevator like frightened kittens. We sprinted across the floor of the parking lot and ran all the way outside to where we heard the faint sound of police sirens nearby. Dina and Julie leaned against the wall to catch their breath, while I pressed my hands against my knees to catch mine.

As the police sirens grew closer, we all stared at each other in disbelief.

"Oh. My. God." Dina inhaled.

I stood up straight again and ran my fingers back through my hair, leaving the palm of my hand up against my forehead to process what had happened.

We actually saw the Batman.

I dared myself to look over my shoulder back to where the elevator was. He wasn't there anymore, of course. I looked back over outside and watched as the tires of the police scars screeched across the pavement road. Several police officers exited their vehicles with their handguns by their side to investigate what had went on inside the parking lot. One of the few female officers that remained outside to stand guard ushered us closer to their vehicle.

"Are you okay, girls? What happened?" She questioned.

As Dina and Julie quickly blurted out loud in every detail about what had happened, I found myself spacing out and staring at the sidewalk pavement.

 _Wait a minute._

I saw the Batman and didn't get a picture of him.

"Alysa?" Dina raised her eyebrow.

I ignored the confused stares of the others as I suddenly swore out loud, mumbling a bunch of profanity in Portuguese.


End file.
